Ephesians 6:10-20
Introduction
I wonder if you’ve ever worn any armour in your life?
I know I have. Not any armour made of metal plates. But I’ve worn other sorts of armour.
When you boil it down, armour is meant to be protective. Or at least, give us the illusion of protection.
When I was getting into mountain biking and as I took on more challenging and dangerous trails, I found myself standing nervously at the top of steep and rocky slopes. I felt pretty exposed and vulnerable. Trees and rocks are hard and unforgiving.
So I wrapped myself in armour.
I put on a full-face helmet and pulled on knee and elbow pads. I put on sturdy shoes that gripped my pedals well and wore gloves to protect my hands.
Wow, what a confidence booster. Covered up in protective gear, you feel impervious to danger, a little invincible. But the uncomfortable truth is that none of this protection would prevent a serious injury. The trees and the rocks are still hard.
But that’s not the only armour I’ve worn in my life. Here’s some more.
In my former vocation, a sharp suit, a nicely-pressed shirt, and a stylish tie, capped off with a pair of shiny shoes. That doesn’t look like it would protect you from much, would it?
But it did. This suit had the same power to instill confidence and provide protection as all that Mountain Biking gear.
This armour said “I’m successful”, “I’m smart”, “I belong in this meeting”. “I’ve got something valuable to say”. “I’m a force to be reckoned with”. It was protection in a world that judges the value of something based on appearances. It covered up the real person hiding inside who felt like an imposter, vulnerable, anxious, wanting to fend off the darts of inferiority thrown their way.
Every day, we all wear different sorts of armour. We think we need armour because life is challenging. It’s rocky; our path is often rooty and poorly formed. We want protection. We don’t want to be hurt. We want confidence. We want to thrive. We want to be victorious.
The writer of Ephesians has spent much of the letter writing about the power of God working in Jesus, and now wraps up his letter saying this power is something for Christ’s followers to put on. This power is the ultimate protection for life in this rocky and difficult, yet-to-be-fully restored world.
V10-12 Whose armour is it anyway?
While these examples of items here are examples of my armour, the writer of Ephesians knows that any human-made armour can only give the illusion of protection. The armour that we need is not made by any craft that humans possess.
Nor is armour something that humans ‘own’ themselves. It’s not ours.
We are told that we are to wear God’s own armour. Throughout Ephesians, we’ve seen that God is the only one who has acted decisively in history to create, renew, reconcile and restore. The only one who has been able to make peace between humanity and the Divine.
This armour is not physical armour. It is the new way of being human that Paul has been describing. Being human, as Christ was human. Following in the footsteps of Jesus.
It’s by putting on God’s armour, putting on our new humanity, the new way of being human in Christ, that we can continue to stand against all that sets itself up against God’s good plans for creation. And stand until we see that final day when God puts the world to rights, the rock and roots are cleared, and the tears and pain are wiped away.
The author of Ephesians points us to the wider Biblical story that sees a cosmic spiritual rebellion as the backdrop to humanity’s rebellion. The biblical authors see that these spiritual forces are at work behind our corrupt human power structures and exploiting our human weaknesses.
For the Biblical authors, these dark forces are against everything, working through distrust and lies to de-create; they want to drag God’s good creation back into the darkness of primordial chaos and non-existence.
Swords are of no use here.
With our modern understanding of the world, with our emphasis on things we can see and touch, it can be difficult to talk about or even believe in malevolent spiritual forces, the devil, or “the Satan”, a title which means, “the adversary”.
But, I’m always surprised by the number of rational, thinking, and scientific people I meet, who don’t see themselves as people of faith, and yet have shared with me their sincere convictions, based on their experience, of a realm with something sinister and unseen, something that for them was deeply frightening.
Now, we are right to be cautious, even wary of such claims. During the the 80s and the 90s there was something called the Satanic Panic. When fear, faith and a climate of anxiety collided to create a destructive culture where churches and our wider society hunted for devils, demons and satanic conspiracies everywhere, devastated innocent lives, all while real evil — including sexual abuse and manipulation within Christian communities — often went unacknowledged and unchecked. We looked for caricatures of darkness behind every corner and missed the real evil in our midst. There is an excellent 8 Episode podcast exploring this called “Devil and the Deep Blue Sea”, produced by Mike Cosper. Josh and I have both listened to and vouch that it’s a gripping, insightful and disturbing listen.
It’s a good thing the pendulum has swung away from these destructive beliefs and practices. However, we must always be careful that the pendulum doesn’t swing too far the other way, that the baby doesn’t get thrown out with the bathwater.
As people who believe in an unseen, benevolent divine being over the cosmos, we should be slow to rule out what we cannot test or prove.
However, we understand these verses today, the church needs to be a safe place for people of faith, and people exploring faith, to share experiences we cannot understand.
The reason Paul is writing isn’t for us to know exactly how such an unseen realm functions or works. We shouldn’t go looking for shadowy figures behind every corner. We are also not to say that humans are not responsible for their actions; “The devil made me do it” is not an acceptable defence.
But as followers of Jesus, we do not need to fear or discount the pestilence that stalks in the darkness and the evil it animates because we are clothed in God’s own armour, clothed in Jesus Christ, who has disarmed the darkness.
Disarming is being armed
The author goes on to develop this metaphor of armour. There’s no shortage of biblical commentaries that describe each bit of armour in detail, filling out the metaphor.
I don’t know about you, but for me, it conjures up the image of a Christian warrior dressed in a suit of armour. Ready to fight for what is right. Standing alone bravely against the enemy like one of the knights of the Round Table.
Perhaps all this is telling of our love affair with violence and military might.
For too long, we’ve believed in the idea that the threat of a mighty military can secure peace. We can have a war to end all wars, deluded into thinking the way for us to flourish is to have the strongest fists, the most stinging sarcastic comeback, the most brutal putdown. We want to believe in the power of violence to rescue and redeem us.
But Jesus taught that the idea of redemptive violence is a myth.
If we look closely at this list of armament, we find that it is pretty “disarming”.
In fact, when Eugene Peterson translates this passage in the Message Bible, he still does so in the context of a cosmic conflict where God defeats the alliance of Chaos. But he decided to leave out the armour metaphor. Instead, he paraphrases it this way:
Truth, righteousness, peace, faith, and salvation are more than words. Learn how to apply them. You’ll need them throughout your life. God’s Word is an indispensable weapon.
We may feel this translation is lacking and a bit toothless. Maybe it lacks some oomph. Perhaps it’s even… disarming. But that is the point. These things are disarming. They are not a way to accomplish anything!
Although Peterson calls “God’s Word an indispensable weapon”. And if that feels combative, there is a qualification.
It is Word with a Capital W. In the same way, John uses Word at the beginning of his Gospel to talk of the Good News of Jesus.
This is important we get this, because we sometimes call our scriptures, our Bible, the Word of God. Sometimes God’s people strike others with it like a sword. We thrust at them with verses that fit our understanding while ignoring the ones that don’t. We parry with quotations, deflecting when those outside the church call us to account.
If there is a battle. It is not against other humans. If there is anything indispensable in this cosmic battle. It is the Good News of Christ, the only one who stepped from the valley of the shadow of death victorious.
The author G K Chesterton observed that in our relationship to the world, humans can be crustaceans or invertebrates. Crustaceans or invertebrates.
We can be like crayfish and have our skeleton, or our armour, on the outside. We hide away our soft, vulnerable interior. We can attack with pincers. But that is a betrayal of who we are.
As humans, we have our skeletons on the inside. Our soft and vulnerable parts are on the outside.
As followers of Christ, we are called to be Christian Vertebrates, not Christian Crustaceans.
Chesterton says that “the armour of God is the embodiment, the internalisation of the life of the Trinity, Truth, Righteousness, Peace, Faith, Salvation, word of God – Christ in us, the hope of Glory”.
Elsewhere, Eugene Peterson writes that these things, when we internalise them, when we live by them, have the potential to make us card-carrying pacifists.
If the Adversary and those who work for chaos and disorder deal in lies, then God’s people are defined by their adherence to truth and vulnerability.
If the powers perpetuate injustice, God’s people are to counter with righteous and fair action, to work for justice.
When others are quick to be carried away with wanton warmongering or divisive rhetoric that doesn’t seem to make any human sense, we stand firm with peace. And when peace fails: We stand with peace. Full stop.
On one level, this doesn’t seem to make any sense, because when we do these things, we are not in a position of strength; we don’t seem very protected.
If we do these things, we will be quite vulnerable… just as Jesus was.
At least if we are looking with human eyes.
We have the Faith of Jesus that can shoulder doubts, fears and questions. Our deepest longings.
If we want to be safe in this not-yet-restored world, armed and protected, we must disarm ourselves and take up the way of Christ.
Strength in Prayer
Just in case we needed a worked example to illustrate this. In the last few verses, we find that the author of this letter is a prisoner because of the Good News of Jesus. They could probably see a Roman soldier in all their protective dress from the cell where they were writing this letter. He could not physically disarm his guard. But by disarming himself and choosing the way of Christ, ironically, he stands free.
How do we do this? How do we disarm ourselves and put on Christ to stand firm?
He asks them to pray.
We pray, through the Spirit of Jesus we pray.
On all occasions. With all kinds of prayers.
Now we see this letter is finishing where it began. In prayer
Remember, we explored how all of our life is fertile ground for prayer. That Prayer is keeping company with God.
What we are doing in prayer is directing ourselves toward God. Orienting ourselves toward the Divine. When we’re oriented to God, even doing the dishes can be an act of prayer.
Prayer is about a posture. A Listening more to God than to those around me or my own voice that would lead me off on my way.
Prayer invites us to disarm ourselves, lower our defences and bare ourselves, our soft, vulnerable, squishy selves that we want to protect from others, and open ourselves to a God who already knows.
Even our prayer posture is telling. Not so long ago, we might have prayed on our knees, or we bow our heads in prayer. Postures of submission, of vulnerability.
Prayer is voluntary defencelessness.
As we’ve explored previously, in prayer, we are not on our own. But Christ, our inner person is there, praying too, drawing us into this partnership with God. It’s how we remain strong in the Lord and God’s mighty power.
The Dutch Catholic Priest and Author, Henri Nouwen, says that when we pray, we create space in which God can act. We invite God to act in our lives.
Elsewhere, the New Testament speaks of living our lives as living sacrifices. Directing our whole lives toward God. That in doing things for others in Love, we are doing them for Christ.
St Teresa of Avila, a 16th century Spanish Carmelite nun, says in her book, The Interior Castle: “The important thing (in prayer) is not to think much but to love much”. The goal of prayer she says, is a loving encounter with God. Love consists, she says not in the extent of our happiness, but in the firmness of our determination to please God in everything”.
A prayer-filled life is one directed to God. Where even the simplest of actions, can be soaked in prayer, immersed in the life of this Trinity.
The key is for us to look for God in our everyday lives. Sometimes that may move us to words, sometimes to silence, and sometimes to action. But when we do, we rest in the strength of the only one who has acted decisively in history, to create, to renew, reconcile and restore. We rest under those motherly wings, in the safekeeping and protection of the Power of Christ.
Closing
So we come full circle. We’ve started where we began. The world is not yet the way it should be. But we can rest in the power of the one who has already settled the spiritual struggle in the cosmos, who promises to make all things new, by disarming ourselves, laying down our weapons and taking up the way of Jesus.
Internalising Truth, Justice, Peace, Faith, and Salvation. Living not as Christian crustaceans with a hard exterior but as Christian vertebrates, with our vulnerabilities on the outside.
Putting on Christ in lives lived in prayer, creating space for God’s power in our lives, knowing we are held safe in the love of God.
Amen.